Which band IS really America's Greatest (rock & roll band)?

Damn initforthemusic, that’s quite a lot of favorites you got there! You must have gone through your record collection, taking notes ;-) .

Some of your nominees have a special meaning to me. The Chocolate Watchband were local San Jose heroes when I was a kid, and I saw them live many times. Even closer to me, their original lineup included Jo Kemling on Vox Continental organ and Rich Young on bass. I auditioned for a group that was forming in the Spring of ’65, that group consisting of Jo and Rich, along with Jo’s younger brother Chuck, whom I went to school with. Chuck and I were Freshman at Cupertino High, Jo and Rich were at Foothill College. I and another drummer auditioned, and I was chosen. That other drummer was Pete Curry, who now plays bass (he also plays guitar, and is a working recording engineer) in Los Straitjackets.

We worked up a set of British Invasion covers (I was assigned the task of singing "Help") and were about to start playing out when The Watchband, also just forming, stole away Jo and Rich! So ended my first band-to-be. The Watchband also stole their drummer Gary Andrijasevich from a Cupertino Frat Band named The Squyers, and I ended up being Gary’s replacement in that band for about a year, playing teen dances at High Schools, youth clubs, etc. Lots of Chuck Berry, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Animals, Surf, etc. songs.

Gary Andrijasevich was also at Cupertino High, but a couple years ahead of Chuck and I. On the day of The Watchband’s first live show in the Summer of ’65, Gary became ill. Pete Curry subbed for him (with no rehearsal), doing a fine job. The Watchband played around the Bay Area for a few years, and can be seen in the Roger Corman teen exploitation movie Riot On Sunset Strip, doing their shameless Rolling Stones imitation. When they broke up (around the end of ’67, I believe), Andrijasevich and Watchband lead guitarist Mark Loomis started another band, named The Electric Tingle Guild. I saw them live only once, and they were great, doing all originals. MUCH better than The Watchband.

Say, being as you obviously are into Garage, are you hip to The Lyres? My favorite in that genre, a great live band. I saw The Sonics in L.A. not that long ago (they have reformed, with three original members). Not as good live as The Lyres, but their records are killer!

Big Joe Turner’s "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" came out in 1954, and is a perfect example of actual Rock ’n’ Roll music that at the time of it’s release was not being marketed as such. The reason obviously being, Joe was a black man, and the U.S.A. was a segregated country. The music of almost all black artists/entertainers was made for radio stations that played Race music, as it was called. White artists routinely covered songs by black singers (as Bill Haley did to Big Joe’s "S, R, & R"), and their versions were marketed to whites, on both radio and the new medium on television.

Well, that didn’t prevent Southern whites from tuning in to the radio shows playing Race music, and then buying the records (78’s, then 45’s). Sun Record’s owner/recording engineer Sam Phillips had been recording black artists (the great Howlin’ Wolf, to name one) for the Race market, and knew there was a hunger for that music amongst white teenagers. Hence the well known quote attributed to him: "If I could find a white man with the black feel, I’d make a million bucks". In walked Elvis Presley!

Elvis (and Jerry Lee, Buddy Holly, Johnny Burnette, Carl Perkins, etc.) listened to both The Grand Old Opry and the stations playing black music, and combined the two to create the original white Rock ’n’ Roll, Rockabilly. Elvis’ five Sun singles contained a Blues/R&B-based song on one side, and a Hillbilly on the other. Elvis was so Hillbilly his original band contained no drummer. Why? Drums were not allowed on the stage of The Grand Old Opry! When it was discovered he was white (he was originally assumed to be black, sounding as he did and being on Sun Records), he was given the nickname "The Hillbilly Cat". Cat was the term used at the time for black musicians.

Much of the music discussed here on Audiogon is that of, or descended from, the 1960’s. Yet if you read what many of the artists making that music have said, it is the music of the 1950’s they like most. Ask Jeff Beck. Ask John Lennon (well.....). When music got SO bad in the 1970’s (Progressive, Hard Rock/Metal, Disco, etc.), many 1960’s generation Rock ’n’ Roll musicians started looking back for inspiration, at the music from before their time. What they discovered was Jump Blues, Country Blues (very different from the urban strain), Rockabilly, Hillbilly (The Carter Family onward), Bluegrass, and other Roots musics. When Dylan brought The Hawks up to Woodstock, it was that music he and they mined to create their new music. The current Americana artists continue to do the same. Dylan has said that, though it is with the 1960’s he is identified, it is the music of the 1950’s and earlier with which he identifies.